Distributed Opportunistic and Diffused Coding in multi-hop wireless networks

In wireless mesh networks, network coding can be adapted and deployed for performance enhancement. Some early results such as COPE, BEND and DCAR show that the use of network coding can outperform the original 802.11 networks. However, these network coding architectures have two limitations: (i) the coding chances inevitably depend on the established route, (ii) traffic is strictly coded based on the two-hop coding pattern. In this paper, a novel and enhanced network coding architecture, Distributed Opportunistic Diffused Encoding (DODE), is proposed. DODE combines (i) the diffused gain from BEND and (ii) the generalized coding condition from DCAR to completely solve the limitations present in the three previous propositions. In addition, we propose a routing metric called Shortest Path with Enriched Neighborhood routing Metric (SPENM) which allows DODE to follow the most enriched coding chance path and also to enjoy the diffused gain. We implement DODE system in NS-2. The simulation results show that DODE outperforms 802.11, COPE, BEND and DCAR.